1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to computers and personal digital assistants (PDAs), and in particular, to a method, apparatus, and article of manufacture for collaborating between application programs executing on a computer or PDA.
2. Description of the Related Art
Prior art handheld computing devices (also referred to as palm PCs or personal digital assistants (PDAs)), are often used to access and utilize personal information. Many handheld computing devices are available in today's marketplace. Typically, handheld computing devices are only slightly larger than the size of one's palm (hence, the name palm PC) and have a small display screen for viewing a plethora of items. Software can be installed on a PDA to provide enhanced functionality. For example, a personal productivity tool may be installed to provide access to a calendar, contacts, email, Internet browsing, audio books, and audio recording capabilities. Card slots may also be available to provide additional memory or other functions (e.g., a modem). Additionally, some PDAs have infrared (IR) potts for communication.
Applications executing on a PDA may utilize and work with itself (by calling or launching a second instance of itself) or other applications on the PDA. For example, an information contact application that provides contact information for businesses and individuals may collaborate and work with a delivery application that transmits email or a fax to a listed contact using a wireless modem. In another application, a geographic information system (GIS) that provides for the retrieval and display of geographic information (e.g., maps) may call itself or collaborate with an Internet application (e.g., an application utilized to browse the Internet such as AvantGo™) to retrieve updated geographic information.
In the prior art, application collaboration on a PDA was not possible. For example, Waba (a programming platform that may include a language, virtual machine, class file format, and set of base classes) has no way to call outside itself, nor a way to remember the context it was in when returning from calling an application. Further, on a PDA, two instances of the same application may not be executed in parallel. Additionally, the use of a database to collaborate applications on a desktop workstation or computer was not performed.